Am Montag, 21. Juni 2021, 06:30:35 CEST schrieb Lew Wolfgang:

VPN's are useful if you want to circumvent geographical content restrictions, or if you want secure access into a remote subnet. Businesses can use VPN to enable their secure remote access privileges for their employees. I'd guess that you really don't need a VPN service. Just make sure that the protocols you use are already encrypted with TLS. Maybe others here have different opinions?

Regards, Lew

I agree. These days you're being profiled through browser fingerprinting, something a VPN (glorified web proxy) doesn't do anything about. Here's a famous writeup from 2015 about the topic that's still valid today: https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 regards

On 6/21/21 10:30 AM, Douglas McGarrett wrote:

On 6/21/21 12:30 AM, Lew Wolfgang wrote:

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On 6/20/21 8:05 PM, Douglas McGarrett wrote:

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I have had some evidence of a lack of privacy in my system, and I have a couple of questions. This lack of privacy is a function of the internet, not some person having physical access to the computer.

I realize that a vpn will definitely work with email,  but will it work with Thunderbird? And will it work with vendors on the 'net? Can one access (for example) Amazon, peruse a category and purchase an item from them via vpn? Is it vendor neutral, so it works with any vendor of any type of product?

Assuming the answers to the previous questions are positive, which vpn would be easiest to set up and to use in practice, without being a 'nix guru?

I think you'll need to clarify your "lack of privacy" first. You shouldn't select a solution before you fully define the problem.

Yes, Thunderbird will work with a VPN but it's not needed if you use TLS for sending/receiving email.  A VPN will just encrypt the already encrypted traffic between your host and the VPN exit node.

Vendors on the net?  How would you access them?  Web browser? Certainly you'd be connecting with https, which will give you TLS encryption between your host and the vendor.  A VPN will do nothing for you if you can't trust your vendor in the first place.

VPN's are useful if you want to circumvent geographical content restrictions, or if you want secure access into a remote subnet. Businesses can use VPN to enable their secure remote access privileges for their employees.  I'd guess that you really don't need a VPN service.  Just make sure that the protocols you use are already encrypted with TLS.   Maybe others here have different opinions?

Regards, Lew I have been subscribed to two magazines that I don't want--I managed to get rid of them, I hope--I was advised by a vendor that the password I used was compromised, and there have been unexplained charges to my credit card, according to the list which I received Friday, which I will be researching this afternoon. If that's not enough reason, I don't know what is!

Those are certainly reasons to be concerned, but I don't think that using a VPN will make matters better.  Look to the security of your vendors instead.   Don't reuse passwords, and don't pay for anything with a debt card.  You have better legal protection with credit cards, and the bad guys can't directly empty your bank account.  Also consider using a service that assigns a unique credit card number for each of your on-line accounts.  CapitalOne has a service called "ENO" that does that.  Another service is at https://privacy.com.  They both allow you to turn your unique credit card numbers on and off so that they're valid only when you need them.  If a web vendor gets compromised, no problem!  Your credit card number is useless to them. Then, of course, beware of email scams, even if you're running Linux. Don't click on links in emails, even from people/places you know! And don't give personal information to anyone who calls you on the telephone! It would be nice if VPN would give you complete protection, but it won't/can't. Regards, Lew Remember!  Don't Reuse Passwords!

On 6/21/21 1:30 PM, Douglas McGarrett wrote:

On 6/21/21 12:30 AM, Lew Wolfgang wrote:

...

On 6/20/21 8:05 PM, Douglas McGarrett wrote:

...

I have had some evidence of a lack of privacy in my system, and I have a couple of questions. This lack of privacy is a function of the internet, not some person having physical access to the computer.

I realize that a vpn will definitely work with email,  but will it work with Thunderbird? And will it work with vendors on the 'net? Can one access (for example) Amazon, peruse a category and purchase an item from them via vpn? Is it vendor neutral, so it works with any vendor of any type of product?

Assuming the answers to the previous questions are positive, which vpn would be easiest to set up and to use in practice, without being a 'nix guru?

I think you'll need to clarify your "lack of privacy" first. You shouldn't select a solution before you fully define the problem.

Yes, Thunderbird will work with a VPN but it's not needed if you use TLS for sending/receiving email.  A VPN will just encrypt the already encrypted traffic between your host and the VPN exit node.

Vendors on the net?  How would you access them?  Web browser? Certainly you'd be connecting with https, which will give you TLS encryption between your host and the vendor.  A VPN will do nothing for you if you can't trust your vendor in the first place.

VPN's are useful if you want to circumvent geographical content restrictions, or if you want secure access into a remote subnet. Businesses can use VPN to enable their secure remote access privileges for their employees.  I'd guess that you really don't need a VPN service.  Just make sure that the protocols you use are already encrypted with TLS.   Maybe others here have different opinions?

Regards, Lew I have been subscribed to two magazines that I don't want--I managed to get rid of them, I hope--I was advised by a vendor that the password I used was compromised, and there have been unexplained charges to my credit card, according to the list which I received Friday, which I will be researching this afternoon. If that's not enough reason, I don't know what is! --doug

As others have said, going the vpn route won't really make a difference. But it may lull you into thinking that you're protected when you're not.  Learn and focus on security best practices, that's your best defense. --dg

On 21/06/2021 19.30, Douglas McGarrett wrote:

I have been subscribed to two magazines that I don't want--I managed to get rid of them, I hope--I was advised by a vendor that the password I used was compromised, and there have been unexplained charges to my credit card, according to the list which I received Friday, which I will be researching this afternoon. If that's not enough reason, I don't know what is!

What you have to find out is how those things happened. Hire an expert that goes to your house and analyzes what you do and how. If the first thing he says is "use an VPN", fire him. For instance, how exactly is your email configured? We need to know server settings on Thunderbird (we do not need to know your login name nor password). The look at your SMTP settings, and tell us what they are. You could consider changing mail provider. Even Gmail, they will not get involved in illegal activities or frauds. They are pretty good at protecting your security. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.2 x86_64 at Telcontar)

On Mon, 2021-06-21 at 22:54 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 21/06/2021 05.05, Douglas McGarrett wrote:

...

I have had some evidence of a lack of privacy in my system, and I have a couple of questions. This lack of privacy is a function of the internet, not some person having physical access to the computer.

I realize that a vpn will definitely work with email, but will it

work

...

with Thunderbird? And will it work with vendors on the 'net? Can one access (for example) Amazon, peruse a category and purchase an item from them via vpn? Is it vendor neutral, so it works with any vendor of any type of product?

A VPN will work with all of that, sure, but your ISP, Amazon, all vendors, will know it is is you who is connecting, nothing will be hidden from them.

The only thing different is that they will think your computer is at a different place. And that your ISP will not see the traffic. But neither will it see the traffic if you connect to all sites using https protocol (on the browser). You also need to make sure your email connections are encrypted (many are not).

As many have said before - The problem, as described, does not seem to be caused by the lack of VPN, thus not solvable by VPN. That being said - if your problem is privacy and ISP monitoring and selling your internet traffic patterns - VPN would prevent ISP from analyzing your traffic in detail. Because of wider audience: Other posts suggested that https is enough to make your traffic secure/private. It should be pointed out that it is not necessarily true for standard web pages. ISPs have pretty good idea where and what you are accessing on the internet https or not. ISPs (US ones for sure) buy/generate https traffic signatures for frequently accessed web sites. VPN hides that level of detail from them and they only broadly recognize if you are browsing web, reading emails or streaming media - not necessarily the traffic source/destination. Content of your emails, webforms, files sent/received, passwords, etc. is about the only content ISP cannot observe in the https traffic. This is not applicable to Dough, but is should be noted that VPNs are illegal and outright dangerous to use in certain jurisdictions. Violence and or incarceration or the thread of it can be pretty effective tools for decrypting traffic, obtaining passwords, etc. -Tomas

Using a Tor network with a DNSSEC name server would be far more effective, than a VPN. Cheers, Ariez ajv@opensuse.org On 22/06/2021 08:05, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 22/06/2021 00.46, TomasK wrote:

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On Mon, 2021-06-21 at 22:54 +0200, Carlos E. R. wrote:

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On 21/06/2021 05.05, Douglas McGarrett wrote:

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...

As many have said before - The problem, as described, does not seem to be caused by the lack of VPN, thus not solvable by VPN.

That being said - if your problem is privacy and ISP monitoring and selling your internet traffic patterns - VPN would prevent ISP from analyzing your traffic in detail.

On the other hand, the VPN provider gets to analyze your traffic in detail.